Welcome!

Welcome to the 12ozProphet Forum...
You are currently logged out and viewing our forum as a guest which only allows limited access to our discussions, photos and other forum features. If you are a 12ozProphet Member please login to get the full experience.

If you are not a 12ozProphet Member, please take a moment to register to gain full access to our website and all of its features. As a 12ozProphet Member you will be able to post comments, start discussions, communicate privately with other members and access members-only content. Registration is fast, simple and free, so join today and be a part of the largest and longest running Graffiti, Art, Style & Culture forum online.

Please note, if you are a 12ozProphet Member and are locked out of your account, you can recover your account using the 'lost password' link in the login form. If you no longer have access to the email you registered with, please email us at [email protected] and we'll help you recover your account. Welcome to the 12ozProphet Forum (and don't forget to follow @12ozprophet in Instagram)!

groupsex ok in the great white north

OTTAWA - Group sex among consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday as it lifted a ban on so-called â€œswingersâ€? clubs.

In a ruling that radically changes the way courts determine what poses a threat to the population, the top court threw out the conviction of a Montreal man who ran a club where members could have group sex in a private room behind locked doors.

â€œConsensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society,â€? said the opinion of the seven-to-two majority, written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

The decision does not affect laws against prostitution because no money changed hands among the adults having sex.

â€˜Bawdy houseâ€™ proprietor's appeal
The court was reviewing an appeal by Jean-Paul Labaye, who ran the Lâ€™Orage (Thunderstorm) club. He had been convicted in 1999 of running a â€œbawdy houseâ€? â€” defined as a place where prostitution or acts of public indecency took place.

Labaye â€” who is still running Lâ€™Orage despite his earlier conviction â€” said he was relieved, and would now go ahead with a new venture with backing from a group of Florida investors.

â€œWe hope clients will be more calm. This will probably lead the way to a good future,â€? he told reporters, saying he was looking at adding a Jacuzzi and a swimming pool.

Labaye said he had about 2,000 regular clients who paid around $20 ($17 U.S.) a year for a membership card.

Lawyers for Labaye and the owner of another swingersâ€™ club in Montreal argued that consensual sex among groups of adults behind closed doors was neither indecent or a risk to society.

The Supreme Court judges agreed.

â€œCriminal indecency or obscenity must rest on actual harm or a significant risk of harm to individuals or society. The Crown failed to establish this essential element of the offense. (Its) case must therefore fail,â€? McLachlin wrote.

In indecency cases, Canadian courts have traditionally probed whether the acts in question â€œbreached the rules of conduct necessary for the proper functioning of societyâ€?. The Supreme Court ruled that from now on, judges should pay more attention to whether society would be actively harmed.

Deviant, maybe, but not dangerous
This seemed to ensure there could be no repeat of Labayeâ€™s original conviction for causing â€œsocial harmâ€? by allowing degrading and dehumanizing group sex to take place.

The judges said that just because most Canadians might disapprove of swingersâ€™ clubs, this did not necessarily mean the establishments were socially dangerous.

â€œThe causal link between images of sexuality and anti-social behavior cannot be assumed. Attitudes in themselves are not crimes, however deviant they may be or disgusting they may appear,â€? the judges said, noting that no one had been pressured to have sex or had paid for sex in the cases the court considered.

â€œThe autonomy and liberty of members of the public was not affected by unwanted confrontation with the sexual activity in question ... only those already disposed to this sort of sexual activity were allowed to participate and watch,â€? they said.

They also dismissed the idea â€” raised during Labayeâ€™s original trial â€” that group sex was dangerous because it could result in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

â€œSex that is not indecent can transmit disease while indecent sex might not,â€? they ruled.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.